Friday, February 21, 2014

I’ve been
thinking about my uncle Todd today. He
is a possessor of my personal favorite spiritual gift, that of making people feel
special. And when I say ‘people’ what I
really mean is ‘me’. He makes me feel special
and has done so for as long as I remember. As a well-respected leader in his
immediate family, extended family, church, profession, and community, I’m sure
he has a large network and yet yesterday I casually checked my email and found
a page-long letter to me. This might be
my favorite ‘in-box’ moment of the day…on the occasion that Uncle Todd sets
aside all of the other cares and relationships of the day and gives me a few
minutes of his dedicated time. This is a
poor replacement to real face-time, but after all, we have lived over a
thousand miles away from one another for most of my life. How do we maintain such a bond?

Uncle Todd
communicated to me very early on that what mattered to me mattered to him. When I was a little girl…maybe in my early
adolescence, I became a haphazard scrap-booker…not talented in the least, but
may I assure you that what I lacked in talent I made up for enthusiasm. The typical trouble of any hardcore scrap-booker
is finding someone who cares enough to fully and deeply appreciate the hours of
care that were poured into the glue, glitter, cut up photos, and random
color-coordinated stickers. But Uncle
Todd did.

Every kid wants a someone special to stop everything and just be interested in what is interesting in that random thing that he or she thinks is wonderful. Having this intuition isn't easily come by, and every kid needs something a little different, but
somehow Uncle Todd knew that this is what this
kid needed. On several occasions, he’d
came by to visit my family and he’d spent an impressive amount of time looking
at photos, asking about specific friends, pointing out especially well-crafted designs,
and generally just saying ‘you matter’.
I feel a little bit weepy even composing this memory of his
kindness. Man, that was sure good of
him.

The way he
valued my opinion stretched into my adulthood as he would occasionally call or
more frequently send over an email asking my opinion on an issue that he was
facing in one of his many leadership positions in his life. He would present me with a somewhat complex
question and ask me what I would do about it.
I strived to squeeze out any trace of wisdom that I might have hiding
within me for his benefit, always subconsciously bearing in mind that with his two-dozen
years more of experience in all things life and leadership- related, my thoughts certainly would not enlighten him in any real meaningful way. I think maybe he must have just enjoyed
connecting with me and learning about how I saw the world. Maybe what we talked about didn’t always
matter. He just wanted to reach out and
say in his own unique way, “I want you to know that you are important and that
you matter.”

Just
recently, he had business in my part of the country. He flew in and drove three hours to see me
and my family. We visited for two hours
and he got back in his car and drove the three hours back to the destination of
his business. If you do the math, that
just doesn’t make sense. But it made
perfect sense to me. He loves me. He’s
been quietly telling me that all of my life. I matter to him and that’s the
kind of thing people do for those they love.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Saturday, February 8, 2014

I’m going to talk about myself this week…breaking my
established protocol and acknowledging that I am neither quiet nor overly good
on any given day. But I have a story
that is aching to be told, so tell it I will.
In my current graduate studies, the time recently came to seek out an
internship.

I somewhat hesitantly confess that in approaching this
chapter of my training I was completely unconcerned. God, I had reasoned, had directly my path so
entirely since the very beginning of my journey to this field, He would
certainly continue to do so now. I
interviewed at several locations and felt extremely secure in two of them—having
experienced what one of my favorite professors had recently called ‘kumbaya
moments’ with both interviewers. We talked, laughed, very nearly cried; really
connected.

Fast forward a few days and I got my first rejection phone
call. Ouch. This is actually the only site that I was
interested in and it would appear that my positive outlook on the interview had
more to do with the therapist’s skills at helping me feel accepted, heard, and
felt, than it had to do with my fitness for the position.

A few more days passed accompanied by
rejections from each and every internship site.

This is about the time that the panic kicked in. I was baffled. I mean, God and I had a thing going and He
had helped me so much up to this point. Crumbling a little bit, I recalled the
prayer I had offered continuously over the past few months appealing to Him to
guide me to the internship that would help me have the experience that would
best prepare me for the work He wanted me to do while not imposing too much on
my precious family time. When these
words came back to me I paused and reflected that perhaps this painful moment
was just a part of the fulfillment of his answer.

Within the last couple of weeks I had had two very poignant
experiences whereupon I had lost something insignificant—I think a text book
and some swimming gear—and after having scoured my home, I had knelt and prayed
to my Heavenly Father that he would guide me to my lost item. Upon closing my
prayer each time, I had immediately stood
up and walked directly to each of the lost items.

In my current distress, these small manifestations of God’s
goodness flitted back into my mind. I knelt again and appealed to him that I knew that He could always find that which was lost—this time
that which was lost to me was a bit more of a stretch…I needed him desperately to
guide me as He had done before, but this time to my internship.

Upon the heels of the final rejection, the crumble, and the
prayer for strength to regroup and see God’s hand in this new development, I happened
to be headed out the door to the temple—a place where, as a Latter-day Saint, I
go to make and renew sacred covenants with God and moreover, a place where I go
frequently to stay centered, safe, and guided by the hand of God in all of my
various roles and responsibilities.
While driving this well-traveled route, my ‘auto pilot’ somehow misfired
and I found myself headed in the wrong direction. Before I could recalculate my journey, the
distinct (and somewhat irrational) thought came to my mind that while I was already headed in that
direction, I might as well stop in and visit a gentleman therapist employed by
my church to re-enquire about an internship opportunity.

I chided myself—God’s prompting voice—in response
to this impression, reminding myelf—Him—that I had already spoken to this
particular gentleman, and that he had already said that he could not take on an
intern. “Go by his office and
speak with him” came again into my mind with clarity and force. Wow.
Okay, I thought. This seemed
crazy but I was admittedly desperate. At any rate, the odds were very high that
he would not be able to see someone who just walked in off of the street. But, I am familiar with these feelings and I
have long since learned that sometimes the more irrational the impression, to
more I ought to take heed.

So I did so, and
turned and car towards this therapist’s office.
I walked in and was seen by him…immediately. This was uncommonly
fortunate. He welcomed me to his office and in the stillness as I explained my
plight, I felt a certainty that I was directed to him and that he would help me
somehow. He again reiterated that he was
not set up to work with interns but brightened up in remembering that he
referred frequently to a local private practice therapist who currently had an
intern and may be interested in working with me.

A week has passed since this brief unfolding of events. An immediate phone call to the recommended
therapist was followed by a phone interview and a face-to-face interview and
within only a couple of days, my completely ‘lost’ internship was found and
secured.

As I reflect on the clarity He lent me in these moments, I am
amazed at His special attention to me. Certainly, I’m not saying that I’m his
favorite. That would be silly. But
sometimes I think it is okay for each of us to look at a little series of
incidents in our lives and imagine a loving Father turning away from the struggles
and strifes of the more ‘real’ or ‘serious’ problems of the world out there
(which there certainly are) as He looks upon one of us in our own personal extremities
to show his loving kindness and special attention. And the real beauty about
this whole thing is that He doesn’t have
to turn his heart from you to show special attention to me. That is the beauty of the nature of God. Actually, I like feeling like his favorite
every once in a while. It’s a feeling
that I hope we each feel before our time is up. J

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Visiting with our friend John is somewhat exhausting. There is so much wrong in the world—this
being a point on which we all agree—but when we get together, I wish that just
even once in a while, we could just leave the world and its troubles alone for
a brief moment and catch up on something more—uhm—shallow…(did I just say
that?) like my discovery of a great new Greek yogurt flavor, for example.
Whatever. Just a few less rants…that’s
all I ask.

No matter where we begin, it is not long before we find
ourselves immersed in a swamp of the world’s ineptitude, corruption, lack of
discipline, and become privy to his general disgust for a variety of
institutions large and small—beginning and ending always with the government
and incorporating a heavy dose of the word “disaster”. I leave these gatherings tired. These issues are so much bigger than we are. We
each throw our own tiny pebbles of good into the ocean of need and hope that a ripple
will form but soon walk away as the water envelopes our futile fragments, not
even so much as forming a dent in the vast expanse. John’s passion is palpable and exhausting.

But far from exhausting John, I recently learned that it
moved him to quiet and courageous action. A flawed world filled with suffering
people. What to do? Well, a few weeks
ago, John knew what to do. Late one
evening I received a text from John’s wife that simply said something like, “John
has gone downtown tonight to save his bridge people from freezing to death
(literally). He doesn't think they will make it in this cold.” I punched into my phone the city where John
lives and was shocked to see that this normally balmy city’s temperature had
plummeted to a frigid 20 degrees.

Mind you, as his wife so succinctly said, these were John’s people. His passion for the
injustices of the world indeed did not burn itself out in talk but rather
ignited in him a desire to plumb the depths of human suffering with the
homeless and nearly-homeless population in his own metropolitan area. That night, he left his own warm home and
drove downtown, filled his vehicle with his homeless friends and found them a
warm place to sleep that night. He has helped them learn employment and other
life skills. He has bought them bicycles. He has even helped them with their
laundry. He has shown a remarkable amount of courage, integrity, and compassion.
He is fearless. Talk on, dear John. The
floor is yours.

Monday, January 27, 2014

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Quiet Goodness Tribute #3 A Fiercely Courageous Father

I want to talk about courage in the face of uncertainty and
someone whose courage kind of blows my mind. James spent many years pursuing an advanced degree. When he finished his degree, I’m sure his
wife and four children heaved the proverbial sigh of relief and looked ahead to
easier times. He got the first job and
they were off to live real life. Halt.
Shortly after having started said ‘real life’ James comes home with the
melancholy news that he’s lost his job.

So James starts the job hunt locally and finds nothing. No leads, no interest, and no hope of
interest from any prospect. Figuring
that it is time to broaden the search, James and his wife decide that he will
drive the 2000 miles to the west coast city where she was raised. He gets into
their vehicle that could ill afford the trip one way (let alone the roundtrip)
and alone and distressed, he is off.
Once there, it seems that James' stars are aligning. He approaches four different firms, all of whom are interested in getting to
know him better.

As I am listening to this recounting (by his elderly mother)
I am mildly interested but not fully engaged. I wake up as I hear the next chapter of his
incredibly story. Shortly before his
prospective interviews with each of these four firms, John prays from guidance
from God and gets the clear impression to graciously decline ALL forthcoming
interviews and to go home to his family and pursue work options in their
hometown again. At this point in the
story I’m fully engaged and a little bit uncomfortable. Did I mention that he
had already done that? Surely, I’m thinking, this guy wouldn’t be crazy enough
to drop everything after all of the time and energy he invested only to go home
empty handed! I mean imagine how that
conversation went with his anxious wife at home? “Hey there honey! Yeah!
I made it safe…the care was fine…made contact with four places, all
liked me but… I’m headed home tomorrow…” Long pause…or worse, not a long pause
at all. You know what I mean. I think
faith is sometimes doing what seems like utter nonsense.

But what seemed like
nonsense from where I sit in my soft computer chair looking in from the outside
of this experience was unflinching courage from where he sat in his old car now
turned eastward towards home and family. He respectfully declined all future
interviews and obeyed the subtle whisperings of an unseen God. Mind you, I did not call him an unknown God. It is my belief that James’ relationship with
God was not at all the unfamiliar, cordial, distant, call-only-when-needed kind
of thing. He knew the God to whom he spoke that evening. He trusted. He did not
flinch…at least he did not flinch when it was ‘go time’ and the calls needed to
be made and the car gassed up.

To wrap up…James came home and soon thereafter was connected with
a gentleman who owns just the kind of company that John dreamed of someday owning
himself. This gentleman was looking for
just such a man as James to come on and in a few years to take over full
ownership.

Of course James did not know this when he courageously turned
his back on what seemed to be his only chance to succeed. But God knew. I love learning about people who are more courageous
than I could ever be.

Monday, January 13, 2014

Lets talk for a minute about irrational fears of the future, shall we? I attended a wedding reception recently and found myself drawn not to the beauty of the dress, the glow of the bride, or the quiet anticipation of the new groom. All of these elements were indeed present but they did not capture me as they usually do. I should say that they began to capture me until a thought wafted through my mind that I'd known this bride (read 'little girl') for ten years now. When I met her, she was thirteen. And now she was making one of life's most significant transitions--one that would invariably shape the trajectory of her life.

From that moment on, I couldn't think about this little girl...I mean bride. All I could think about was her mom (ahhh...I'm getting old...associating more with the mamma than the blushing bride...). I was transported to ten years hence at the wedding reception of one of my own little girls or a few years after that to the wedding reception of one of my precious sons and all I could imagine was--is despair too strong a word?--yes...maybe...how about gloom--that I might feel upon giving away a LARGE piece of me to another. I felt a sweep of anguish at the reflection of mistakes made, opportunities missed, you know, the general flub-ups that are incident in all of our fallen attempts to mother well.

How could this mother of the bride look so joyful and calm? I mean this gal didn't walk throughout the room greeting guests, she floated!! Incomprehensible! She reflected a pure undulated serenity that completely mystified me. And to complete this delightful juxtaposition between my feelings on their behalves and their own real feelings, I looked over to the father of the bride to see downright jubilation. He was visiting with my husband and threw his head back as he gestured to the photos of the wedding party--taken in something like -14 degrees! He was just delighted at the incongruence of the joyful faces in this photo-- quite literally as frozen in cold as they were now frozen in time.

Smiling faces in bitter cold. Joyful parents in letting their daughter go. How was this so? There is something that touches down deeply here. Anyhow...the next day in a tender moment spoken by a tired mom-of-bride, I learned that her joy came from feeling at peace with her own inner compass. She said that although she made a million mistakes and would love to go back and change another million things, she felt that her children all knew they were safe in coming to her and her husband whether blue with sadness or red with anger. Well that is not exactly what she said but you get my point...They tried their hardest, mended fences as they fell, failed and tried again. Sometimes succeeded. Never stopped trying. Gave roots and then gave wings.

In essence, my friend--the mother of the bride--was an engaged parent. And according to the theories of shame and vulnerability researcher and expert Brene Brown--engagement is the only true marker of a 'good' parent. I have no doubt that these parents of the bride did spend their share of time feeling the exquisite pain incident of transitioning through the beauty of life's changing seasons in our own and our loved one's lives. But after the pain comes an even greater joy, which I was privileged to see as the bride's father took his daughter in his arms for their first dance together as father and grown-up-married-daughter. Very sweet indeed.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Oh my goodness...why is this so difficult? I approached 2014 resolved to combine my hair styling entries with something of substance to most certainly myself and possibly someone else who might stumble this way. Well, having resolved to begin this, here we are on January 8th and I'm already--or maybe I should say 'only'--a week behind. However, having just now sat down to do this thing, I can truly say that I am already benefiting from my resolution to look around me and give tribute to those who inspire me in their quiet and un-flashy ways. By consciously resolving to 'find' someone each week to recognize--even if it is just to this audience of one (me)...I am seeing quiet greatness all around me. And naturally, these people have not just popped into my life. They've been there all along, just doing their deal, and only now I am seeing things as I have never seen them before. Cool.

I want to start close to home by recognizing my 7th grade daughter Molly (all names now and hereafter will be changed to protect those who would otherwise be embarrassed by any notice). Molly deserves a badge of courage just simply by way of having survived unscathed by the seventh grade. I mean, seriously, when I think back on the seventh grade, my hands get clammy and I am immediately brought to that moment when I couldn't find any friend close enough to commit to become my locker partner. Ugh.

And here she is, this Molly girl, actually enjoying it. I figured she must just be made of stronger stuff than her mother was as a 13-year-old, or maybe that middle school had been easier on her than it was on me, until she started sharing some experiences she'd recently had. We were driving warm meals around to some shut-ins on Christmas Day (yeah! for the good people at Salvation Army who gave us this AWESOME opportunity!) and Molly--seemingly out of the blue--cheerfully told us a handful of things that other kids had said to her over the past few months. These are not nice things. These things made me want to ask her for the name of that rude girl in her gym class (among others) so that I could go do what every mom wants to do when her vulnerable daughter is verbally assaulted by another not blessed with a kindness filter. Anyhow, as I listened, it became clear to me by Molly's way of sharing these stories that though painful enough to remember--they were not personally defining moments to her. The more she shared in a way that expressed her 'I'm okay-ness', the more I was able to be okay too.

In the end, we all laughed and congratulated Molly on her courage in having to share a world with a few--or might I suggest a whole bunch of--awkward, insecure, and filter-less adolescents who sometimes choose hurting others as their way of play. I pay tribute to her because she did not see herself as a victim, but rather as a player in a play who could easily step outside of the role 'seventh grade girl' and slip comfortably into something far more comfortable...'daughter, sister, friend, helper, musician, child of God'...all places of relating that are safe and kind, and all places where I hope that she finds complete and total acceptance and warmth. These safe identities don't change with time and enable those 'mean kid' comments of middle school to slip down to the place where they really belong...under the boots and into the slushy snow of a Christmas afternoon family service project.

About Me

Hi! I'm Valerie, the ambivalent blogger. What does that mean? It basically means that I'm hoping to have something to share that will resonate with someone either creatively or in my reflections about good people and good books in my life.

First of all...I express my creativity through hair...have been playing with hair for 25 years and recently did hair for the popular Discover Girls Magazine, and am currently a content contributor with Girl:IT Magazine (present in Australia, Finland, Germany Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, and Hungary) and TweenGirlsStyle Magazine. So I hope you'll enjoy my YouTube posts as I enjoy these great opportunities. Putting myself 'out here' is a vulnerable place for me and I am enjoying the experience of practicing courage in this effort...an attribute that I value deeply.

However, I couldn't bring myself to just write only about hair. I'm sorry but that sounds soo boring and actually, quite two dimensional. So I'm going to spend my time writing about something that will allow you to get to know me a little deeper level. Charles Jones once said "You are the same today as you'll be in five years except for two things: the books you read and the people you meet." I intend to write a weekly tribute about either a person or a book that has impacted my life.

So please enjoy this hodge-podge of a blog...where you'll come to know me creatively through my YouTube tutorials and you'll come to know my experiences as I move through the world of beautiful people and powerfu books.